Casualty of War
by Sincerely Tiffany
Summary: War hero Jay Halstead loses his hand in an ambush and struggles to adapt to the changes in his lifestyle. Nothing seems to be working. Life doesn't seem to be getting better. That is until he meets Erin Lindsay, a physical therapist who is determined to help and refuses to give up until she does just that.


Erin nearly drives her car through the brick wall of the outpatient clinic that morning. She wasn't paying attention. She had one hand on the wheel while the other dug through her purse in search of her employee badge. Her eyes had only pulled away from the road for a split second and by the time they averted back in front of her, she was slamming on the brakes, immediately sighing in relief and thanking the heavens above that her brakes were top tier and she stopped just an inch before her vehicle hit the curb. She shuts off her car and drops her head forward to rest it against the rim of the steering wheel, "I hate Mondays."

She clips her badge to her polo shirt.

She rubs her temples, hoping to work out the headache that she could feel coming.

She holds her bag to her chest, unbothered by the downpour to her uniform as she steps out of her car.

The automatic doors welcome her into her place of work for the thousandth time in the many days she's worked here over the last four years. And like her typical weekly routine, she waves to the receptionist and heads straight into the employee locker room, intentionally avoiding a glance at the patients sitting and waiting patiently in the small reception area. She isn't late, technically she arrived five minutes before her scheduled time and she uses the few minutes she has left to spare to pull her dampened hair up into a messy bun and gather herself before facing the same group of elderly patients she meets with on a bi-weekly basis.

Erin doesn't want to leave the locker room. It's peacefully quiet. It's calming. A part of her wishes she had the equipment she needed so she could conduct sessions in here instead. She reaches into her locker to grab her sneakers, switching out of the shoes she currently has on her feet for the pair that she only wears at work. She's checking her watch and uses the last few seconds to tie her shoes, grab her phone out of her purse before slamming her locker shut and jogging out of the locker room. Now, she's kind of late. Crap.

Her Monday mornings always start off the same. She works with two elderly women, both of whom have suffered a stroke and lost mobility in the right side of their body. She's been working with them for a few weeks now, both ladies making exceptional progress considering the extent of their stroke and their current age. They give her a hard time, but she's grateful because by some fluke of luck, she was saddled with them instead of the two men Kim are stuck helping, -or trying to help since they've been coming for just as long as Erin's two elderly female clients yet haven't made as much progress as them. That's no fault to Kim, it's more fault to the two elderly men because they won't listen to her, they're stubborn and majority of the appointment is spent with Kim having to repeat herself, having to show them the exercise over and over again, having to convince them to trust her and give it a shot and having to convince two men in a generation above her that she knows what she's doing. Erin doesn't want to be in her shoes, definitely not on a Monday morning when it's the start of the week.

"Hey Kim," Erin waves to her friend. And Kim gives her an exhausted smile in return. She still has a whole work day left and she's already drained.

Erin continues down the hallway, excusing herself through two physical therapists who apparently thought it was a great idea to have a conversation in the middle of the pathway, -screw anybody that actually needs to get through to get work done. She rolls her eyes before knocking the irritated expression off her face and painting on a smile of professionalism the second she enters one of the main treatment rooms, "Good morning Mrs.-" she snaps her mouth shut when neither Mrs. Price nor Mrs. Clark are sitting on the bench, waiting for her with a look of annoyance at her tardiness and a written down list from Mrs. Price of questions and concerns she's had since her last appointment. The professional smile that was once painted on her lips drop when she realizes that they're not in the room at all. It's empty. Did they cancel and no one told her about it?

She nearly got into two car accidents on her way to work just so she wouldn't be late and her first appointments for the day weren't even here.

After releasing a weary sigh, Erin shuts her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. She needs to talk with the receptionist. Maybe they called and left a message? And while it's not odd for one of them to cancel, she's never had both of them cancel on the same day. If she had known her morning appointments were cancelled, she could have slept in a little longer and came in a little later. She lets out another weary sigh and rolls her shoulders, "This is just great," she whispers under her breath just as her body turns to leave and suddenly slams into the hardened chest of somebody, -a stranger she eventually realizes when his hand grabs a hold of her waist to steady her.

"I'm sorry," she looks up to meet his eyes and…-they're green, they're beautiful and they're familiar. She's seen them before -never in person- but she remembers seeing his face on the local news. He's Jay Halstead, a man who has been serving his country for the last ten years, a war hero, a man of honor and when he drops his one hand from her waist and takes a step back, she follows his gaze to the hand that didn't touch her. It wasn't flesh; she didn't need to touch it to know that.

It was a prosthetic hand, -a passive functional hand prosthesis with no moving parts, only used for simple carrying, pushing, pulling and stabilizing.

"I'm Jay Halstead," he fails to hold eye contact. His own gaze averted to the ground as he swings his injured arm behind his back in an attempt to hide it. He was sent home from a warzone after losing his left hand. He left a whole man and returned as a shell of himself, as a hurt and damaged man that doesn't know what to do. He's lost, wading through life with no purpose.

Erin blinks back into focus. She doesn't stare, not in this profession, she's learned not to do that. Yet he's caught her staring before she even had a chance to introduce herself and probe as to why he's here and if he scheduled an appointment to meet with one of the physical therapists. Erin licks her dry lips. Her mouth feels just as dry but there's nothing she can do about that now, not until she has a spare moment to get a water bottle from the vending machine. Erin shakes her head and smiles awkwardly at being caught staring. She's a bit flustered and every bit embarrassed especially after drips of water from her damp hair sprinkled onto his face after she shook it. He raises his hand -his good one- to wipe the rain water off his face and when it drops back to his side, she finds him openly gawking at her, looking at her as if she's sprouted a second head and that's when she realizes that she's made an absolute fool of herself.

"I'm sorry," she also realizes she never responded to his introduction, "I'm Erin Lindsay," she extends her hand and curses herself for extending the wrong one, "Just call me Erin though." He doesn't bother pulling his prosthetic hand from behind his back to shake her hand, instead he waits, hoping that she gets the hint and offers him her other hand. She does. And she makes no verbal mention of it. She only makes a mental note.

She gives herself exactly one minute to school her features, clear her mind and get her bearings in order to display a semblance of professionalism, "Sorry, it's been a long morning and the day has just started," she waves him further into the main treatment room and nods towards the bench, "Do you have an appointment to see someone? Unfortunately, we do not take walk-ins."

"I have an appointment to see you," he sits down, eyes drawn towards the ground, "Um, the receptionist walked me down here and said you were in here. Unless more than one Erin Lindsay works here, I think I have the right person."

Erin has absolutely no idea why her usual Monday schedule was switched around but she's not in charge of scheduling, she's simply in charge of showing up. She gets paid regardless. Erin lifts a large medicine ball and carries it over to the stand; it hadn't been put back where it belongs and if her coworkers keep forgetting, someone's going to get hurt. She sets it down on the bar, lining it up with the other medicine balls before turning around, "Okay," she clasps her hands together, "I don't know if you've ever done physical therapy before," he shakes his head to answer her question, "okay I was just going to say whether you did it before or not, it's different for everyone because injuries are different, mobility is different, level of functioning is different and considering age, health and um," she rubs her forehead because it seems she's lost her train of thought.

"Are you new at this," he interrupts. She's a bit scatterbrained and all over the place but that's more of a reflection of her being unprepared to work with someone new rather than her actual personality. She came to work expecting to pick up where she left off last session with her clients; she wasn't prepared for introductions and conducting an initial evaluation with a new patient.

"I'm not new."

"Is this your first time working with someone like me?"

She takes that as a test. His prosthetic hand is still behind his back and he's yet to pull it from that position since she first noticed it. It's easier for him to pretend like it isn't a problem, to live in denial about his missing hand until the phantom pain comes only to force him to remember a limb that he no longer has anymore. It's fine now, there's no pain, but he knows it'll inevitably come back like it always does, "If you're asking if it's my first time working with an amputee patient, then no. If you're asking if it's my first time working with a patient with an amputated arm, then yes, however, I'm trained to help, but if you do not feel comfortable because of my experience, I can get you someone else."

He's self-conscious about his hand. Self-doubt is practically radiating out of his pores and he won't even hold eye contact with her for long periods of time. The poor guy is using the ground, the bland gray colored floor as a focal point to zero in on. He doesn't even answer her question so she takes his silence as agreement, as the kindest way to say that he does want someone else. Erin turns to the door, mentally bashing herself for her incompetence. She knows better. She is better. She's good at what she does, she's passionate about her career yet before she can even start helping him, she's already practically been dismissed, "That's not what I meant," she stops just at the doorway.

Erin turns around to surprisingly find him looking up at her. And it takes everything in her to not get lost in those eyes again. They're just so green, so nice and peaceful and if she keeps thinking about them then she would never get any work done. She doesn't have any water to splash on her face so she's forced to run her palms down it and blink back into focus, "Okay," seriously, what has gotten into her, "For our initial evaluation, I want you to tell me about any medications you're currently taking, any recent surgeries, um" she swallows and licks her dry lips, "the difference in mobility before and after the amputation and then we'll get into the examination where I'll just observe and record functionality and measure all impairments. After I complete a full evaluation then I'll be able to come up with the best treatment plan for you," he nods and those beautiful eyes of his are suddenly drawn back to the plain floor.

* * *

Jay stands in the center of the room, sock covered feet settled on the mat as his arms are held out at his side and he circles them around in full rotation, forwards until Erin tells him to stop before rotating backwards. She walks around him, taking in his position, jotting down notes and observations onto the form pinned to the clipboard. Erin scribbles the pencil along the paper as she documents her findings on his range of motion, moving to stand behind him to look out for any strange joint angles, muscle patterns, bone movement and overall flexibility, "You're doing great. Can you rotate forward for me again?" She moves towards the front of him.

And she moves closer, checking the muscle definition of his upper arms and pecs.

Erin notices the scars peaking beneath his black tank top. The few she can see on his chest are dark, are embedded in his flesh so deeply that she knows whatever caused them nearly killed him.

"You can stop now," and once he lowers his arms, she gives more instructions, "now leaving your arms at your side, can you make your palms face forward, face them towards me with your thumbs pointing towards the side?" He does as requested but shows a bit of difficulty with his injured arm.

Erin makes a note of that.

"Now, can you slowly lift both of your arms up as far as it can go without causing any pain?"

She watches him raise his arms up, up and up until he presses his palms together above his head. And based on the smile on her face, he knows this is good. She's satisfied by what she sees. He can raise his arms above his head without any sign of pain and discomfort. On the way back down, he feels a bit of stiffness but not enough to cause any worry. He's doing really well. And he finds comfort in that because he'd been putting this off for the longest.

"I'm going to walk behind you and I want you to do the same movement again."

Both of his arms are decorated in a light brush of freckles. It's only his injured arm that has decorations of scars, just as prominent as the ones on his chest. They stretch up and down his arm, disappearing beneath the prosthetic that covers a small portion of his flesh. She remembers hearing about him on the news, he was a hero, he was a man that selflessly served his country, protected his buddies in his unit and took the brunt of an impact that none of them deserved. That happened a few months ago yet it was now that he was getting physical therapy for it. What took him so long?

Her pen continues to scratch against the notepad, "Does any of this movement feel painful? Or odd? Or maybe out of place?"

"No," he responds evenly, "Can I stop now?" Jay turns his head to peek at her over his shoulder.

Erin quirks a brow at him when he drops his arms without her approval. Fortunately, she's seen enough from that exercise and takes him through a few more before she's taken enough notes and gathered enough observations that she can set the clipboard down onto the bench. She clasps her hands in front of her and moves to stand to his side, "There's one more exercise and then we're done with the physical portion of this evaluation."

She leads him to an exercise bike. She nods for him to get on. Silently, she observes how he carries it out, how he balances himself with only one arm. He's very adaptable. This is good.

"You can start pedaling," she wants to check his stamina.

"So," Erin moves to lean against the vacant exercise bike beside him, "I find that an easy way to pass the time is talking." He doesn't look at her, instead he focuses on the bright red numbers glowing on the screen of the bike, "What do you do for a living?"

"…nothing," he grumbles. And maybe that wasn't the right question to ask. She's not the best at making conversation. The idea of idle chitchat or talking just to talk is a skill she doesn't possess.

For a brief second she leaves his side only to retrieve the clipboard she set down. She brings it over and presses a few buttons on the bike, adding resistance to his pedaling, "Keep going, I'll tell you when to stop," he does as she requests while she holds the clipboard in front of him, using her pencil to point to specific lines on the form she filled in during her observations, "okay, so as expected the range of motion in both arms are different. Both have a limited range of motion, this is the current standing," her pencil moves across the page to point at the information and she notices his eyes focused on the notes she made about his bad arm; he didn't pay attention to anything she wrote about his good one, "I want to emphasize that it's the current standing range of motion, but this," her pencil moves to the next portion she's talking about, "is the projected range of motion you'd get back if you work with me."

She's confident about her work, about her ability to help him. And he likes that.

Erin lifts her gaze and it connects with his, only for a brief moment because his guard was down. She saw that vulnerability, that insecurity shining through his facial expression. Jay doesn't have much hope left when it comes to his hand -or lack thereof- but there's something about her confidence that is soothing, that transfers from her to him and gives him just a small portion of hope that he isn't setting himself up for disappointment, he isn't setting himself up for the failure he predicts will occur months down the road when very little progress is made in his life.

He can't get his hand back.

He can't do a lot of things he used to do.

He's only here because after months he decided to listen to his psychiatrist and finally schedule this appointment.

He didn't think there was much she can help him with or much she can do for him but he appreciated her confidence and the way she speaks to him like he's normal.

She takes in the side profile of his face, his sullen expression, the five o'clock shadow and his pale and lightly freckled skin and the answer to her earlier question -what took him so long- was suddenly answered. He wasn't ready. He probably had an endless amount of medical appointments followed by mental health sessions; he wasn't ready to step foot in a room that'll force him to acknowledge and talk about the limb that he lost in such a traumatic way.

Erin does feel bad for him. It's something about the expression on his face that draws her in, that has her attached, that makes her want to help him as best as she is skilled to help. She suddenly realizes she's staring again and turns her head away to looks down at the digits on the exercise machine before he realizes that majority of the time her eyes were on him, "Okay, you can stop."

He stops. She reads the numbers displayed in bright red numbers flashing on the screen. Silently, she jots them down onto the form while he looks at her. Now it's him that's staring when she's not looking at him. He takes advantage of the opportunity. He stares into the dimples pierced into her cheeks, finding himself lost in the smoothness of the skin that he wants to touch. Jay shakes that thought out of his head because ever since he came back to Chicago, he hasn't been the same. He's not the man he used to be; he's a new person, a different being, a man that has seen and experienced more in the last ten years than most in their entire life. And now with his hand gone, it feels like he lost his confidence at the same time he lost that limb.

Jay knew he had the face, women liked his face, his face still looks the same, but when they notice that one of his hands weren't real, that's when they immediately lose interest. It was no point in even flirting, in even shooting his shot when his prosthetic hand is here to remind him that it'll never hit. Any chance of meeting a woman, falling in love and starting a family ended the second he got hurt. No one wants a broken man, -both mentally and physically.

He wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth the fight.

And she was too beautiful for someone like him.

"As long as you keep up with your appointments here, we can increase your daily functioning in no time." He blinks back into focus and he realizes that he missed a portion of what she said but instead of asking her to repeat herself, he nods along as if he were listening. She's still confident about what she can do for him, that much stood out in the tone of her voice, "but we have to work together. It's not going to be easy but I'm positive we'll make progress." Even though she shouldn't give her patients false hope, she can't help but want the best for him.

Surprisingly, at least to her, she gets a smile. He looks happy, but it's not the one she was hoping for, it isn't proud or determined or anything of that nature. It doesn't even reach his eyes but at least it's something. Erin doesn't understand why the news isn't making him happy because of all the evaluations she's done, his looks amazing in comparison. He's in great shape. He's healthy. And if he wasn't missing a limb, no one would be of the wiser that there was something wrong. That's the problem, isn't it? When she blinks back into focus, she finds him staring at her, and he doesn't look away. Those eyes, -she can't get over them. And she gazes into them, the confidence in her expression reassuring him that she isn't going to give up on him. He nods. A connection suddenly sealing between the two of them at an unspoken -yet understood- conversation. Jay tries to hold the smile on his face for a little longer but it's difficult, it takes effort. He's relieved he'll get some functioning back but at the end of the day he's still missing his hand and there's no amount of physical therapy that'll ever change that.

The small smile finally drops from his face. It took too much energy to hold.

And consequentially, it made her smile drop as well. She hadn't even realized she was smiling in the first place.

Erin just met this man yet there's something about him that makes her want to help him. She can't fix this, she desperately wants to, but that's out of her control. But she wants to do whatever she can to make his life easier. She notices he's no longer looking at her, his eyes are focused back on the ground and instead of thinking about that, she finds herself looking down along with him.

"Are you left-handed?" She only asks because that's the hand he lost.

"No," he whispers.

And that brings a grin to her face because a sudden idea planted itself in her mind, an idea that in the long run will hopefully bring a genuine smile -that actually reached his eyes- to his face, "I just thought of something," she struggles to suppress her growing enthusiasm, "I want you to write down a few short or long-term goals that you want to accomplish. You can have any amount. The only requirement they must have is they have to involve your hands. That's the only thing. I need them written down by your next appointment so you have the rest of the week to think of them. Make em all count."

* * *

Jay was practically drenched in sweat from anxiety. He couldn't stop pacing while bending the index card and then unbending it. Maybe he should throw it in the trash? Start over? Come up with better goals because now he's second guessing them and they all suck. Maybe he should keep them and just change the last one? He doesn't even know what possessed him to write the last goal in the first place. He needs to be connected to a heart monitor because while he's no doctor, he's pretty sure his heart is about to beat out of his chest.

"Good morning, Jay," she greets him the second she steps into the main treatment room, and all of a sudden, he lost his ability to breathe or maybe he didn't lose it, he just forgot how to do it. It seems he also forgot how to speak too because he doesn't say anything in return, "Hi." She crosses the room to stand right in front of him. Her hair is dry -fortunately it isn't raining outside like it was last week- and she has her hair pulled up into a high ponytail. She's wearing her same uniform; the same shoes and he thinks she switched up on her body wash because her scent is different.

It's a good different.

"Are you okay, Jay?" He only blinks out of his reverie when he feels her hand brush along his forearm on his _left_ arm and suddenly, he's pulling that arm away, tucking it behind his back.

And before she can apologize for overstepping and before he can reassure her that his reaction was not her fault, he extends the index card in her direction and a weak smile tugs at her lips, "I was hoping you didn't forget. Thank you," he nods because of course he wouldn't forget; it's been on his mind from the moment he left his last appointment to the moment he handed the card over to her. Jay honestly hadn't even finished it until this morning, it was taking forever to come up with a fourth and final goal and by the time he thought of one, he quickly jotted it down before racing out of his home. And now he regrets it. It's something he wants but it's something that he's too much of a coward to suggest and now he's taking the easy way out by writing it on a piece of paper for her to read. Jay wants a do-over and before he's able to reach for the card, she's already reading his goals out loud for him to hear.

"Opening a bag of chips," her eyes flicker up to meet his and he holds her gaze, it's hard, he really wants to look away but he forces himself to maintain eye contact until she finally looks back down at the index card, "tie shoes, button and unbutton shirt," he's now holding his breath because the last goal is approaching and he isn't ready for it, "and cook for Erin."

And suddenly her head whips up upon reading the last one. Her cheeks are a mix between scarlet and the color of a tomato when she processes his last goal. She blinks. Her mouth is agape.

Jay isn't looking at her. He can't. Instead he's staring down at his favorite ground with his prosthetic tucked behind his back and his right hand scratching the back of his neck. He's going out on a limb right now and Erin suddenly realizes something.

The whole week she had replayed their session over and over in her mind. How he kept staring at the ground? How he would try to hide his hand from her? How he barely talked? She knew he had an insecurity surrounding his hand but maybe that insecurity was intensified by her presence, by a small crush that he had on her and the fear of being rejected. And she knew that even if she did reject him because he's her patient, that's a line she promised she would never cross, a line that could get her fired, she knew he would think it had everything to do with his missing limb, -not her job ethics. He wouldn't see the full picture; he'd simply blame himself.

A second is all she needs to think quickly on her feet.

Erin grabs the pencil that was resting above her ear and scribbles down something he couldn't see before putting the index card on the bench and moving closer to set her hand against his shoulder. It's the same shoulder connected to the arm he keeps hiding from her and the fact that her hand is so close startles him into looking up. His green eyes connecting with her hazel ones and something soft in her calms his growing anxiety and tames her fluttering heart. She gives him an encouraging smile and this time, for the first time, he tries to match the one she provided, "I can change it."

When her head tilts to the left in confusion, he expands on his statement, "my last goal I mean."

"I said make em all count," she repeats her words from a week ago, "and based on what I read, you definitely did. These are good goals. All of them involve your hands and that was the only requirement. You don't need to change them. And eating is a necessity in life and it'll be good for you to adapt to cooking with one hand," she takes a pause to gauge his reaction; there is none, his affect is flat, "and if there's one thing you should know about me it's that I love food and I'm a harsh critic of food. If you're up for the challenge then I accept and I think it'll be a good way to end accomplishing your goals," she gives him an appreciative smile and he pegs her acceptance of that goal as sympathy even though that's far from the truth. Erin doesn't know him but she's slowly learning how to read him and instead of arguing the assumption that she's confidently aware came to his mind, she turns to grab his index card that she put down, "and just so you're not surprised, I've added a goal myself," surprisingly for him, she doesn't show it to him. Instead, she tucks the index card into the back pocket of her khaki pants before leading him towards the mat to instruct him on the stretches and exercises he'll be executing this session.

* * *

Erin hardly ever parts from his list. She keeps it on her, either in her purse or in her pocket as a reminder to never take the little things in life for granted. She was going to improve his range of motion, hopefully help him with the occasional pains as well as accomplishing every last goal on his list before their sessions are permanently over.

They walk along the sidewalk, his shoulder occasionally bumping against hers, not on purpose but due to the limited space a busy sidewalk in Chicago has in the mid-morning. Erin's in a large hoodie that belongs to him after he offered it to her when she thought they could make it to the store and back without her grabbing her jacket from the locker room. She was wrong yet she stayed silent. It was him that noticed the shiver rip through her body and he didn't think twice about pulling his hoodie over his head and extending it towards her with his good hand.

His bad hand seems to always reside behind his back when he's in her presence.

"I'm sorry we have to walk to the store to buy a bag of chips."

He shrugs, "It's not your fault the vending machine doesn't have potato chips." He looks up, the colors of orange and yellow decorating the usually blue sky and he finds the sight peacefully beautiful. He would love to take a picture of it, to save and look at it later but when he nearly bumps into someone and they shout for him to watch where he's going, the idea of taking time out to capture a picture of nature seems to be a horrible idea especially considering it'll cause him to stop in the middle of a busy sidewalk in a crowded city.

"I've petitioned for them to add chips to the vending machine," she tucks her hands into the pockets of his hoodie, it's green, the same green that's the color of his eyes and she's tempted to point it out to him but she can't figure out a way to say it without sounding too cheesy and like she's flirting, "but they think it's bad for business, a place that promotes healthy living selling chips and candy in the vending machine is kind of hypocritical but I argued the point that hospitals sell the unhealthy crap so why can't we, ya know?" He chuckles at the passion in her voice on a topic that's so trivial, "I'm just tired of granola bars, nutritional bars, dried fruit and nuts."

They reach the store. He pulls the door and holds it open for her to enter first. She whispers a thank you and ducks into the building. A bell above their head jingling to alert the cashier of their presence. It's a teenage girl, popping chewing gum in her mouth while bent over and flipping through a magazine. Erin sends her a wave, one that the cashier doesn't acknowledge, before leading him towards the chip aisle. It's obvious she comes here quite a few times because she knows where everything is located, she grabs a brownie, obviously for herself before pointing at the chips, "Do you have a preference?"

"…not really, I haven't had a bag in months."

Erin grabs the nearest bag of chips, "Alright, want anything else?"

"No."

She grabs a few more bags of chips before leading him to the front and when the two items are rang up, Jay goes to reach into his back pocket when Erin stops him, "I got it covered."

"I can't let you pay for my chips."

"You're not letting me do anything Jay," she hands the teenage girl the cash and waits for her change, "and besides, I'm eating the brownie and I'll probably eat a few of the chips too."

Erin takes the bag of their snacks from the cashier and Jay takes it from Erin. He's a gentleman, in the few weeks they've worked together, she's picked up on that much. He holds the door open for her to exit first before he follows behind her.

"Now the idea of opening chips with one hand sounds hard but once you got the hang of it, you should be opening them in no time."

"Potato chips were actually my guilty pleasure. I'd eat a bag every week," he releases a defeated chuckle, "but since my hand," he pauses to release a sigh, "I've stopped eating them. I tried to hold the bag against my body and use my good hand to open it but it never worked and for the rare chance that it did, it would crush my chips."

"Have you ever used scissors?" She throws a smile over her shoulder, already knowing the answer to the question she asked, "don't be so hard on yourself," he palms his forehead because the thought of using scissors had never occurred to him, "a lot of people don't automatically think of the simplest idea. It's okay. And besides, you won't always have access to scissors so I'm going to tell you another simple tactic to use to open a bag when scissors aren't available."

"I wasted a goal."

"No, you didn't."

"I did," he still has his prosthetic behind his back, hiding it from the view of the people in front of him, "I could have just googled how to open a bag of chips."

"Technically you can google how to do everything. I don't think it was a wasted goal. I don't think any of them are wasted goals. You didn't just write down the first one that came to your mind, you took time to think of each one, you ruled out some and the ones that made the list made it for a reason. Trust your decisions. Even the smallest of goals are goals and deserve to be accomplished whether you have to google how to do it or whether someone has to tell you or show you how to do it. Every goal on that list we're going to cross off."

It's something about how she talks to him that's comforting.

When they return to the center, she doesn't lead him to any of the treatment rooms. She takes him to the employee lounge, ignoring the confused stares from her coworkers as she pulls out a seat for him, "Go ahead."

He doesn't question her, he silently sits.

She throws the snacks on the table, slides her brownie to the side and holds up his bag of chips. He takes them from her and she watches him attempt to open them. It slides against his shirt, the bag wrinkles up and when he really focuses on holding it still with his prosthetic so he can pull it open with his hand, she can hear the chips break and crumble.

"Let's try again but this time instead of using your chest use your teeth and pull with your good hand."

Jay frowns, "What about the germs?"

"If you open sauce packets with your teeth then opening a bag of chips should be the least of your problems."

"I don't do that either."

Erin slides the bag closer, nodding for him to use his hand and his teeth. In most cases, he'll probably just use a pair of scissors but for the purpose of today, he clenches his teeth on one side of the bag and uses his good hand on the other before giving it too sharp of a pull that it opens so hard a few chips spill out of the bag. Fortunately, they bought more than one and as the saying goes practice makes perfect, "Try again."

And he does. It's the fourth try that he gets it right but she takes that bag to eat. He opens the fifth bag just as good as he did the fourth and he helps himself to that one.

"You're making great progress and I'm not just talking about your goal; I'm talking about with the exercises too," she compliments. The crumbs from the chips are on her fingers but she makes no move to wipe them because she's still eating, "between you and me, you're my best patient yet."

"You probably say that to all of your patients."

"Not at all," she laughs because if he only knew, "actually the day we first met, I had two clients scheduled for that time and day. They ended up rescheduling for afternoons because they're in some water aerobics class now on Monday mornings but those ladies, love them dearly," she chuckles, "but if I prematurely go gray it's probably because of them."

Jay finds her funny. He finds this session laidback. He finds her to be cool. This is nice. Maybe weekly sessions with his physical therapist won't be bad at all? Jay laughs at something else she says that he finds funny. She's not even trying and that's what makes it all the better. It's a chill session, one filled with talk and eating chips -she even splits her brownie- and if her coworkers are side-eying them, Erin doesn't pay them any mind and he likes that about her even more. She doesn't care what people think of her. She's talking to him and her attention is only on him.

* * *

Some days are better than others. This isn't one of those days.

Jay's feeling sorry for himself, he's more down than usual and it just so happened to fall on a day where he had to see Erin. He's known her for a few weeks now and he's managed to hide his darkest of days, his darker emotions from her, but today, he can't. He's hitting a boxing bag with his good hand closed into a fist as he waits for her to get here; she's late and that's such a pet peeve of his. He keeps hitting the bag, harder and harder with each swing as his prosthetic hand is held against his stomach. He keeps swinging and the bag keeps shaking and at this rate he's going to be too exhausted to perform whatever exercises she had in mind for today's session.

But, she should have thought about that before walking in late.

"I am soooooo very sorry," she rushes into the room, dropping her belongings -because she bypassed the locker room so she wouldn't be later than she already is- before rushing over to stop the boxing bag from swinging, "I got a flat tire and my neighbor had to help me change it. I'm so very sorry," she appears to be empathetic and he feels bad for being mad at her in the first place.

Erin stands behind the bag, holding it still with both hands before looking around the bag to meet his eyes, "Did someone tell you to hit the bag until I come?"

"No," he swings and hits the bag again, "just working out a little anger," he moves his prosthetic behind his back to hide it from her eyes, "I need this. Sorry."

"I have a better idea on what might be able to help you."

He only stops hitting the bag to listen. He waves his hand in annoyance, hinting for her to continue otherwise he'll just go back to releasing the emotion on the defenseless bag, "You can talk."

"I have a therapist that I go to for talking."

"I'm a new ear," she shrugs, releasing the bag and moving to stand in front of it; he won't be able to hit it with her standing there, "I'm a different perspective. All I'm saying is it's worth a shot."

"I don't come here to talk," he's snippy but she takes no offense to it; he's not the first patient that's gotten snappy with her and he will not be the last, "I come here to do those arm exercises or whatever it is you have me doing. Can't we just do that so I can go home?"

Erin slowly nods, "We can," she pauses to watch him walk over to the bench and flop down onto it, reaching by his feet to grab his water bottle to drink half of its contents, "or we can talk."

Jay caps his water bottle and sits it down near his feet before looking up at her, at those hopeful eyes of hers, the eyes that could probably convince him to do anything and he feels compelled to listen, to give in and do as she requests. She wants to know. There's not many people that actually want to know about how he's doing besides his therapist -but he's paid to ask- he's paid to care and as his physical therapist, he knows Erin is supposed to be concerned with helping him manage his condition, reduce his pain, restore functioning and improve his overall health and nowhere in that does it say she should concern herself with his mood, with why he's being extra grumpy today.

"I just feel stuck," he suddenly starts talking. Eyes crest fallen as he stares at his arm resting on his lap. She moves closer to the bench, taking a seat next to him to listen more intently, "I don't know what to do about any of this. I thought I would be a military man for the rest of my life. I never thought I'd be medically discharged, practically forced into retirement at such an early age."

Erin brings her hand up, hovering it above his back, hesitating because she doesn't know if her hand to his back would be a welcomed touch. She doesn't want to overstep as his physical therapist but when he continues talking, sharing with her his deepest insecurities, she feels this magnetic pull that draws her hand to his back, rubbing uncertain circles that were testing for his response, waiting for him to shrug her off and tell her to stop, but when it never comes, her hand relaxes, caressing soothing patterns into the back of his t-shirt, "Between my mental health and my physical health, I don't know where to go from here," he squeezes his eyes shut to focus on blocking out the memories that are fighting to replay through his mind, "Doctors couldn't save my hand. It's just a mere casualty of war to them, those were the words one of them used when I woke up to find my hand gone, it just makes it sound so small and insignificant, and I've only been home for a few months and trying to live with this thing," he raises his prosthetic before lowering it back down to his lap, "is hard. I know my whole lifestyle has to change but I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to adapt to this," he reopens his eyes to stare down at the hand -the prosthetic hand, "and I know you're trying to help but it's hard."

"Coming here is a great first start," her hand is on autopilot as it continues to rub slow and wide circles into his back, "I don't want to toot my own horn but I'm one of the best," that earns a smile from him and based on that little smile alone, she'd deem this meeting a success.

"I'm in therapy," he admits even though she already knows this, "my therapist and my doctor both recommended physical therapy to me. I kept putting it off. I didn't see the point of it. It wasn't like you'd be able to give me my hand back." He stops talking to stare at where his actual hand used to be; he takes the time, the silence to think, to contemplate and gather the words he wants to say next, "some uh, some days are harder than others. I'm not supposed to be here. I'm supposed to be over there, fighting, saving lives, protecting my country. And now I can't do any of that, now I'm here, living off of a disability check and a pension."

Sometimes you don't want someone to give advice. Sometimes you don't want someone to attempt to offer encouraging words or compliments. Sometimes you just want someone to listen. That's it.

And Erin seems to have picked up on his need for that because as he talks, she makes no interruptions. Even when he pauses, she doesn't cut in. She stays quiet, simply nodding her head and rubbing his back, allowing him to talk it all out without rushing him. It's how they spend this session, sitting at the bench, with him sharing stories of being overseas, of some of the things he's witnessed -either good or really bad,- he tells her about pranks pulled, jokes shared, and even about how they -his service brothers and sisters- had become his family, closer to him than his actual family and how spending holidays with them, away from the country he's fighting to protect were some of the best moments, the best celebrations he's ever had the opportunity to experience.

"I'm not close to my family. My dad passed away in a fire a few years ago while I was in a different country. I have a brother and we haven't spoken since I got back. We're not close, we never were and this," he raises his prosthetic before setting it back down, "only pushed us further apart. He lives in a different state, we only call on birthdays and holidays and that's about it, that's the way we prefer because it's no point in pretending we're close when that's far from the truth."

It's just him. He's alone. He was hurt and returned back home with no one waiting.

Jay's eyes mist up and Erin makes the decision to hug him. She wraps her arms around him so quickly, allowing him to bury his face into the crook of her neck to release the sob that suddenly burst and all she can find it in herself to do is squeeze him tight and run her hand up and down his back. She can't tell him it's going to be okay because she doesn't know if it will. She wants to reassure him but she doesn't want to overstep. She wants to help him, she wants to be there for him, she wants to be that supportive figure in his life, whether it's as a physical therapist or a friend. He deserves to have someone. And she does too.

* * *

Erin sits cross-legged on the mat, hands wrapped around her ankles as she stares at him slide his feet into the sneakers. He usually wears sneakers with shoe strings but he keeps them tied up, sliding his foot in and out of them because he hasn't mastered the art of tying them with one hand.

"Now what?" He looks up at her waiting for instruction. And she sits up to her knees, moving her foot in front of her and pulling the string to untie her laces.

She stands all the way up, "Now, I'll demonstrate and you follow along," she smiles and looks down at the one shoe on her foot that's untied, "first we're going to hold one shoelace down with one foot and pull the other lace tight, like this," she demonstrates, "make sure your laces cross over when you do this," she smiles when he readjusts his laces to match what she's doing, "perfect, now keep the lace under your shoe and make a loop with the lace you're holding," nodding along slowly she encourages him to continue, "okay now we're going to bring the loop behind and under the lace and then while holding the loop in place with your thumb and index finger, let the straight lace out from under the shoe," she makes it look so easy and when the loop string is accidentally released, he lets out a grunt because he has to start all over.

Erin releases her own strings, implying that she's going to start all over with him. She goes even slower than the first time she showed him and once they're caught up to the step that he messed up on last time, she whispers for him to take his time.

"There," he sighs out in relief when the loop lace doesn't fall from his hand.

"We're almost there. Now don't let go of the loop lace. Next I want you to use your other fingers to wrap the free lace all the way around the loop, there you go," she nods along, "and then you want to push the middle of the lace through the new loop." He's doing so well and she doesn't want to break his concentration with a compliment so she continues her final instruction, "you're going to need to use your free foot to hold down one loop and you use your hand to pull the other loop to tighten the laces."

That had taken longer than expected. And he already knows she's going to make him do it again and again until he's cut his time in half. He eventually gets the hang of it but he knows he'll have to practice when he gets home. It's either that or just do what he's been doing, tie his shoes, keep them tied and slide his feet in and out of them. He still needed to know how to tie the laces because if he gets a new pair of shoes or his laces untie while walking, he doesn't want to have to depend on asking someone else to do it. It's embarrassing for him.

"You're really improving," Erin sets her hand against his shoulder, "I'm impressed."

"…really?"

She turns to meet his eyes, "Really."

Jay genuinely smiles at her assurance and it takes everything inside of Erin to not get lost in his green gaze and his pearly white teeth. She's a professional. And him smiling at her doesn't change the fact that this is her career, and he's currently her patient. He's not the first good-looking patient she's had in the years of being a physical therapist but he is the first one that she's actually thought about outside of session. A relationship can never happen while she's working with him and he's probably not even interested -besides the minor crush he had in the beginning- so she needs to knock the idea of that out of her head completely.

* * *

Erin counts aloud as he performs one of the exercises for today's session. She repeats her counts of three before nodding for him to transition to the next exercise. He needs a distraction because he can feel the burn, he needs a distraction to take his mind off the push he's giving his arms to meet today's goal count for the exercise. He speaks, "What made," he's a little out of breath, "what made you decide to become a physical therapist?"

She calls for a break. He releases the medicine ball and goes over to grab his sweat towel and a water bottle Erin fortunately got for him from the vending machine when he forgot to bring his own. She jots down a few notes and a few numbers onto a document clipped to the clipboard before sliding it under her arm, "Um, do you actually want to know or were you just trying to make conversation?" He nearly spits out his water at her bluntness, at her ability to read between the lines. And since she's always been so honest with him, he decides to be the same with her.

"Both?"

"Are you asking or telling me?"

"…telling?"

Erin chuckles and moves to take a seat beside him on the bench, "I'm an only child and I was raised by a single mother. Bunny," his expression is confused and she waves it off, "don't ask," she chuckles, "anyway she had an opioid addiction and when I was 12 my mom accidentally overdosed. I was home with her and I heard a thump from when she passed out and I found her on the floor in the hallway. So, I called the police."

Jay hadn't expected the question to lead to this sort of story but it only made him more interested in hearing it. He was drawn into her, into a woman filled with smiles and light even after being raised in such a dysfunctional household, "they got her to the hospital in time and my mom survived. A year later, she had a stroke, doctors thought it had to do with her previous overdose but when she had her stroke it led to weakness all along the left side of her body so she had to go to physical therapy to improve her daily functioning."

Now Erin isn't looking at him, she's faced forward staring at the exercise equipment they'll be using in the upcoming weeks, "I went with her to every appointment, two times every week. I was 13 and you can imagine how bored out of my mind I was at the beginning of it all because I'd go, sit on the bench and do my homework and then watch the rest of her session. This happened for months and her physical therapist, Camille," Jay notices the smile on her face when Erin says her name, "we uh, we became kind of like friends or I guess she became like a role model for me. I never had one of those growing up. Bunny was my only family. Neighbors were addicts like her. Teachers didn't care about us, practically gave up on even trying to encourage us to do something with our lives. Camille was different. When I was around 14, my mom stopped going to sessions but I'd still go without her and Camille would let me hang around after school and if I swept the floors, she'd pay me a few bucks. It was a nice gig for someone like me at that age."

Jay suspects the ball is about to drop at some point.

"I would sit in on her sessions and I would ask a million questions. I know I drove her crazy but it was so interesting to me to see how she would be able to help someone with limited mobility improve. I'd never thought about what I wanted to be as an adult and a girl like me was never exposed to careers like that, we had no career days and it just wasn't in my potential. I'd hear that a lot from a few of my teachers but Camille always told me the opposite," she takes in a deep breath, holds it for a few seconds before letting it out, "I stopped showing up after school when I was around 15, maybe 16, can't really remember the specifics but I fell into it with the wrong crowd and I was heading down the wrong path and I got arrested and ran into Camille at the precinct they booked me in. Apparently, she was the wife of the guy that arrested me," Erin shrugs and chuckles at the irony, "she talked him into letting me go but I had to agree to show up for a summer receptionist job at the center. Of course, I agreed. I thought I was going to hate it but surprisingly I didn't. I got to shadow Camille. I made actual money, of course it wasn't a lot, but it was a lot for me at that age. And I got to get out of the house, I hated being home."

Erin stops talking momentarily when he reaches his good hand over to squeeze her knee. She gathers herself, focusing her eyes on anything but his hand making contact, "I didn't want to go back down that path again. It was hard. Camille had to yell at me a few times and looking back, I really needed that. I never had the discipline. Bunny was too busy getting high to do it herself. If anything I think she was probably proud I was following in her footsteps," Erin shivers at the thought of ending up like her mother, "I shadowed Camille. I spent a lot of time at the center. And sometimes, I'd spend the night there to get a break from Bunny. Camille never knew that. If she did, she'd probably bring me home to her son and her cop husband, I wouldn't fit in. So I split my time between school, home and the center and then when I graduated, she helped me get a scholarship, she and her husband wrote me outstanding letters of recommendations and I got in, worked my ass off through all those years of school, I did residency, I was certified and licensed and here I am today," Erin looks down at his hand before looking up at him, "working with you."

Jay looks up to meet her eyes. There's so much he wants to say but he knows the break isn't long enough for him to say it all, "You're really amazing."

"That's really kind of you to say."

"It deserves to be said."

"Thank you." Erin rises to her feet and goes to grab the medicine ball to put it back so no one trips over it. And as she bends over to grab it, she nearly drops it from her hand onto her foot when he asks his next question.

"What happened to her? Camille, I mean."

Erin clears her throat, "A few months after I graduated, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I didn't know at the time but that was her second time she was diagnosed, she had it when I was 15, around the time when I stopped going to the center. She beat it. When she was diagnosed again, it came back stronger. She died six months later." Erin drops the ball onto the stand, a little harder than necessary.

"And what about your mom?"

"She died a year ago. She overdosed again. This time I wasn't there to save her though."

* * *

"Did you bring it?"

"I brought it," he holds up the light blue button up shirt. And the moment she smiles, he does too.

Erin rises from the bench and crosses the treatment room, "Can you show me how you typically button up your shirt?"

"I don't," he admits, sliding one arm into the sleeve before sliding the other, "I haven't worn a button up shirt since-" he stops talking to look down at his hand, implying what his words will not say, "I avoided them but you said to write a goal."

"…and it's a good one," she stops in front of him, grabbing the collar of his shirt and straightening it, "Light blue looks really nice on you," she compliments, earning a faded blush from him. He wears the button up shirt open, over the white t-shirt he wore into the building, "This is a new shirt," she doesn't phrase it in the form of a question; it's a statement, one she's positive about, "I can tell," she grins and looks up to meet his eyes, "the buttons are thick and the holes haven't been broken in much, it's going to be a little difficult."

"I'm sorry," he steps away and her hands fall to her side, "I can run back and get another one."

"I said it'll be difficult not impossible."

For a half an hour Erin watches him attempt to close the shirt, he had gotten lucky with a button in the middle but those towards the top and towards the bottom were not trying to be compliant. His fingers kept slipping. The buttons would fall from his grasp. He couldn't loop the button through the hole. And his prosthetic felt absolutely useless because it doesn't move how he wants it to move. All it serves to be is a constant reminder for what he's lacking. His fingers just kept fumbling over the first button, the pressure of being watched was just too stressful but it helped that Erin wasn't speaking, she didn't whisper words of encouragement like she typically did, she just watched and observed. But, he couldn't get it.

"Damn it," he grunts. His eyes closed and he looks away, fearing the look of disappointment that he expected would cover her beautiful face.

"I'm going to give you some directions," her voice interrupts his thoughts, his tendency to talk down on himself -something he's working on with his therapist- and he reopens his eyes to give her his undivided attention, "I want you to use your thumb and your ring finger, I notice you typically grab the button and start with that, but this time I want you to grab the slip and start with that side, put your thumb through the slit," she waits for him to follow those instructions before continuing, "now find the button with your thumb and use your other finger to push it through and you can use your prosthetic to hold the side down while you push the button through the hole."

He attempts. It doesn't happen right away.

Erin steps back, moving out of his personal space and his anxiety appreciates it more than she'll ever know. He feels his heartrate level out. He can still smell her and he can still see her in his peripheral vision but at least she isn't within touching distance. Erin's almost a head shorter than him and in the months they've known each other, he's picked up on all of her tells -both overt and covert- and what freaks him out the most is she's picked up on all of his as well.

"I can't do it," he exclaims out of frustration. His arms fall to his side. He looks up, his eyes wide and he's absolutely disappointed in himself, "I'm sorry! My appointment is almost over and I still don't have it. I've wasted your time and I'm sorry I couldn't get this."

"Hey," she says that one word so soothingly, so calmly. There's something about her raspy voice that's comforting and he can't put his finger on it, "hey," she repeats herself and moves back into his personal space, extending her hands to grab his opened shirt, "it's easier said than done." She drops one hand and uses her dominant one to button his shirt before unbuttoning it, "you'll get it."

"I'm not going to get it," it hurts to admit but he's being realistic.

"Jay-"

"I'm not going to get it," he repeats.

"Jay."

"I'm not going to get it, Erin!"

"Fine," he hopes he doesn't imagine her hand lingering at the bottom edge of his shirt as she steps away, "you're right. You won't get it as long as you keep telling yourself that you're not going to get it. Months ago, you wrote that down as a goal because you had enough certainty that you could accomplish it. I have all the confidence in you to do it because I know you can do it but if you constantly tell yourself that you can't do something then you'll never be able to do it." Erin intertwines her hands together and hangs them in front of her body, "now, my next appointment cancelled, I don't mind working with you through it. So, let's try this again."

Jay doesn't argue with her. He simply inhales a deep breath before releasing it and focusing on the buttons, connecting them to the loops. And he knows that if he gets the hang of this, pretty soon he'll be able to do it without concentration, -it'll just be natural. It takes longer than he likes but he does button the first two and Erin doesn't make a big fuss of it -he appreciates that more than she'll ever know. It takes time to finally finish and when he does, he looks up at her with a grin only to find an even bigger one stretched across her face, "Now unbutton it."

The tips of his fingers fumble just a bit but unbuttoning is definitely not as hard as buttoning, "Do it again," she directs and he really shouldn't be surprised at this point. She's focused and determined and he really has hit the physical therapist jackpot because no matter how many times he feels ready to give up, she unintentionally provides the push that he needs, she's the person who doesn't treat him differently, who won't accept him pitying himself.

And when it takes him just as long to button the next set, she gives him such an innocent smile before directing for him to unbutton his shirt and do it again.

She has him do it again and again with small breaks in between only to spend the rest of the session doing the same thing over and over. Practice. It serves a purpose. And when she has him do it once more, he finds himself in the middle of a conversation with her about the football game last night, not even noticing that he's made his way through more than half of the buttons until she's grabbing the pencil tucked onto the top of her ear and the index card slid into the back of her pocket while asking, "Should I cross this off the list?"

Once Jay manages to loop the last button, he nods and looks up at her with such a proud expression on his face, "Yes." He's so proud of himself. And she's proud of him too.

"Well then," she grabs for her clipboard and clips the index card to the board, "how about you do the honors?" Extending the pencil and the board towards him, he takes it and draws a neat line through his own handwriting.

* * *

Before the attack, his life had been all about the army. He enlisted once he was legally allowed, he'd been invested in serving his country, in protecting his brothers -and sisters- in arms and in moving up the ranks of command. He had always saw himself retiring in his mid-40s, married, maybe with two kids, a dog and a home outside of the city. Jay defined himself by what he could do, about the amount of weight he could lift, the speed he could run and the accuracy he had when shooting a weapon. And now, now all of those plans had changed, now he was forced into early retirement, he was single, he had no dog and he was living in an apartment that barely had enough hot water to allow him to shower for longer than ten minutes. Now, he was a walking story of trauma and tragedy and Erin is one of the only people in his life (including his psychiatrist, his primary care physician and his orthopedist) who didn't seem to mind the difference.

It was refreshing.

It once felt like he lived on top of the world and nothing and no one could bring him down. He could have gotten any girl he wanted; he could do anything he wanted to do. It was nothing holding him back and nothing that could get in his way. People looked up to him, people respected him, people wanted to be him. He was a war hero. He saved lives. He protected innocents. And all of the attention he got for his looks, for his strength and for his ability to protect and serve had suddenly been turned towards the hand that he'll never get back.

He got two medals. He'd rather have his hand back.

Jay had lost family and friends. Some left because they couldn't handle the changes while the rest of them were pushed away. He said things, unforgiveable things, at the height of emotion, at the height of his turmoil during the early days after his attack. It was before Dr. Charles came into his life. It was before Erin started helping him. He has many regrets, pushing away people that once cared was up there with his biggest one. And even after reaching out, attempting to apologize for what he said, he was left unforgiven.

They needed a reason to distance themselves and Jay stupidly gave them one.

"Do you need a break?"

He looks up to meet her eyes, to notice the casual dimples appearing in her cheeks when she bites her lip and he looks back down at the ground to whisper, "Yeah, my uh, my shoulders are a little sore," she had him using the shoulder wheel to relieve pain and improve his range of motion. He'd lost a lot of muscle when he was in the hospital after the attack.

He rests at the bench, hand on his knee, prosthetic on the other and he stares down at the unmovable device. He can see her in his peripheral take a seat next to him on the bench. She uncaps her water bottle, throws her head back and guzzles down half of its contents, "Thirsty?"

Erin looks up and smiles at him while using the back of her hand to wipe her mouth, "Just a little."

That earns a small chuckle from him. And the sound of that earns a brighter smile from her.

Jay relaxes his shoulders, moving his prosthetic behind his back because he's still self-conscious by it and he reaches for his own water bottle with the other hand. She watches him drink this time, noticing his Adam's apple bob with every gulp and when he releases a refreshing sigh, she hops up to her feet and extends her hand, "Ready to continue?"

"I thought we were taking a break."

"We did," she leads him to the shoulder pulley, "and now the break is over." Erin demonstrates the exercise and then moves out of the way for him to mimic her action, "We're almost done. This'll be our last exercise for this appointment and then we'll stretch and be all done."

He was exhausted. His mind was everywhere and couldn't focus on one thing as he attempted to perform the exercise accurately. He felt the burn.

"Jay, I want you to slow it down just a bit," she directed, hands resting against her hips and moving to stand in front of him, "you're going too fast, you might pull a muscle. You're straining. Don't focus on the exercise, focus on something else and let your arms work the pulley naturally."

That was easier said than done. He didn't know what to think about or how to take his mind off this present action. She was asking for too much, for something that felt unrealistic. He continues to strain, pulling so fast and so hard that she'd see the bulge in his muscles ripen with every twist of the rope, "Jay," she asserts, stepping closer towards him, now standing face to face as he continues the exercise, "can you tell me about what happened? Only if you want to, of course."

Jay wasn't stupid. He knew the reason for the question but there was something about exerting energy through the pulley, being face to face with her, looking into those hazel eyes of hers and trying to focus his mind on everything but the pain on his stump, "I uh," he surprises himself -and even her- by starting the story, "was in the warzone," sweat forms on his forehead, it's from a combination between the exercise and having to tell the story to someone else; he'll keep it short, simple and straight to the point because he's afraid of reopening those healing wounds, "traveling to a classified location that was only disclosed to those who needed to know," he continues to pull, unknowingly he's pulling the pulley at the desired pace, "during the trip our unit was ambushed, our Humvee was flipped and my hand got caught between the Humvee and the dirt road. I had to think quick. I had to make a call. It was either lose my hand or lose my life. I chose my hand and every day until recently I debated on whether or not I made the right decision."

The pulley released from his hands the second Erin takes another step closer. She's standing close enough for him to smell her hair, the lotion on her skin, the body spray on her clothes and the toothpaste used to brush her teeth. And he's not complaining one bit. His injured arm goes behind his back to hide it from her sight when she whispers, "Not many people could have done what you did. You're a brave man Jay Halstead and I'm sorry that I've never said this but thank you for your service," she extends her hand -this time it's the one adjacent to his good hand- and he extends his own to shake it. He's speechless, obviously surprised by his words.

The scars on his arm have healed but the moment he's reminded of what happened, she can see the pain behind those green eyes reflect the painful memory that replays in his mind. And she wants to ask more questions but she knows it isn't her place. She's not here to discuss him losing his hand or his mental state; she's here to help him heal and strengthen his muscle and ability.

"Are you-"

"Do you-"

At the same time both of them attempt to speak leading to bashful smiles and gazes landing onto their sock-covered feet on the mat. They're acting like school children with a crush yet neither one of them notice that the other is acting in the same manner.

Erin is the first to look up, "What were you about to ask?"

And suddenly he catches cold feet yet the way she's looking at him, eyes encouraging, smile supportive and expression inspiring allows him to borrow some of her confidence to ask a question that he would regret not asking, "Do you uh," he's nervous and she finds that endearing especially when he raises his hand to scratch behind his head, "do you think you'd maybe uh want to get coffee with me?" When she doesn't answer right away, he continues, "It'd be nice to talk to someone about what happened that's not my therapist," his smile pleads with her, "I lost my hand and the worst of it all wasn't over yet. I had to shoot a weapon with one hand while bleeding out because we were ambushed and they were still on us. I hid and shot. I don't remember all of it, it's a bit of a blur, I think it was the adrenaline because I was bleeding out, still shooting and taking out the enemies and then by the time I passed out and came to I was in medical. I thought it'd been a dream…or a nightmare, but it was real. I woke up with bandages around where my hand used to be, there was nothing anybody could do. It was no saving it."

A moment of silence fills the room before it's broken by her low voice.

"I would love to get coffee with you."

And that honestly surprises him, "Really?"

She can tell he's shocked by the way he's looking at her. He truly believed she was going to say no.

"Yeah, it's just coffee and I'd love to hear more stories."

He scratches behind his head because he doesn't know how to take that. She's his physical therapist and this is just coffee -as she said- and based on the way his smile falters, Erin can tell he's disappointed by her subtle shutdown. But, he's her client. Things have to stay professional. It's okay to get coffee as long as it's just coffee.

Erin bites down on her bottom lip and if she notices the way his eyes fall to the lip that's currently being bit, she doesn't say anything. Simply, all she does is raise a brow.

And he blinks. "What were you going to ask earlier?"

It takes her a minute to remember.

"Oh," she clasps her hands together, "I was going to ask are you ready to stretch?"

He was definitely ready because the sooner they stretched, the sooner they could get that coffee.

It was nice and simple. An outsider looking in may think they're friends catching up while other outsiders may view them as a couple. Regardless of what they're viewed as it's neither of their business and neither of them notice because she's too wrapped up in the sound of his voice, of the stories he tells her involving more of the pranks they pulled on each other, of the meals they ate, of spending holidays away from family and friends and of being in the middle of an active warzone.

It's scary especially when after next week's appointment they venture out to get coffee again. It becomes a tradition of some sort unless there is a last-minute schedule change or an appointment was moved up. It becomes the norm, session after session, ending with stretches and then a walk to the coffee shop across the street, swapping stories of life experiences and embarrassing moments.

She's easy to talk to because she doesn't judge. She doesn't stare either. She actively listens to understand instead of to respond. And he likes and appreciates her so much for that. She's starting to see him as more than a patient. He's starting to see her as more than a physical therapist. And every day that passes, every day that they meet up for coffee after session, every day they swap stories, they start to like each other more and more.

* * *

Jay walks through the automatic doors to find her leaning against the reception desk, fingers tapping against the top of it. When her face lights up at the sight of him, it takes every part of him not to dwell on it because she's his physical therapist, -his smart, compassionate, beautiful, too good for this world physical therapist. He comes with different goals that he never tells her about, ones more focused on her like earning a dimpled smile, hearing her laugh, earning a compliment and making her blush. He likes her and that's a scary thought because he doesn't deserve her.

And that's the truth of it all. It's one that he has to force himself to face.

He likes Erin. He knows that. He also knows that Erin is too good for him. She'll never give him the time of day.

"Good morning Jay," she waves for him to follow her to the main treatment room and when he falls in step beside her, she poses a question that's been on her mind, "Have you ever thought about getting a more advanced prosthetic? I'm not sure if you're aware of the different types of prosthetics that are out there."

"Yeah," he scratches the back of his head, "the doctor went over them and suggested one that'll allow better movement and grip, I uh, I turned it down. It's all kind of a blur actually. I wasn't in the right mental space to make that kind of decision at the moment. I just wanted all talk of prosthetics to be over. I might reconsider it though. Maybe. I don't know. I mean it's not like it's my real hand, it's just another prosthetic, at least this one blends in from a distance."

"It's just a thought."

He pushes open the treatment room door and holds it open for her to enter first, "Thanks for the suggestion," she walks through, her shoulder brushing against his, "and thanks for thinking of me."

* * *

Since he lost his hand, he's never felt like he could be himself, he never felt comfortable just being him until her, until now. He feels like himself in her presence.

He thought cooking would be harder considering he only has one workable hand and he hasn't cooked for himself since before the accident. She gave him a reason to cook again, to venture into the kitchen and make something that actually required prep work and the stovetop.

Jay has eaten so much cereal and microwavable meals in the last couple of months that he probably could go the rest of his life without eating either ever again.

He makes stir-fry. It took hours to prep because of the vegetable cutting but this was worth it. She was worth it. And based on the moans that comes out of her mouth every time she takes a bite, he surmises that she loves it.

All he can do is stare. And bite his lip. He needs to stop before it becomes obvious but it's the first time he's seen her out of her uniform. She's in his element. He's no longer in hers. And they're actually talking, laughing, and their subject of choice is about everything but his hand, his disability and everything he can't do. It's a breath of fresh air.

"Are you going to watch me eat the whole meal?"

He blushes; he actually blushes because he was caught, "Uh, sorry."

"No, I'm just joking," she sets her fork down and reaches for her glass of wine, "I don't know if I've thanked you for this. Thank you for having me over. The food was amazing."

"Thanks."

"No, I'm serious. I know food, specifically delicious food and that was it." They're both acting like school children that developed their first crush, both blushing, neither holding eye contact for too long and the soft smiles that appeared on their faces were so vulnerably innocent.

Jay accepts her compliment. He doesn't even try to down play it. He rises to his feet and lifts his empty plate before reaching for her own. However, before he can grab it, she's up and heading towards his kitchen. And he's following behind her, "You don't-"

"I don't mind."

"Thank you."

Erin sets her hand against his shoulder and smiles, "Anytime. And besides after the meal you just cooked, I should be the one thanking you."

"It was a goal on my list," he shrugs to downplay it, "and now that's…over." Jay's been working with her for months and he's always been curious about the day that relationship would end. He wouldn't be her patient forever. And he was actually starting to like seeing her every week.

He's done two tours. He was on the front lines. He lost his hand while he was conscious. Yet he couldn't even ask to see her outside of session, he couldn't ask her out or request to spend time with her that had nothing to do with physical therapy. The man practically loved her, worshipped the ground she walked on and the thought of this relationship -whatever it is- ending anytime soon was a thought he didn't want to entertain. He didn't want this to be a goodbye. He didn't want this to be the end.

* * *

Jay stared at the back of her head as she walked -and he followed her- to the door. She has her purse pressed against her chest, the heels under her feet play a calming beat when moving against his hardwood floor. His eyes fall to her back, the outfit -so different than her work uniform yet so simple- she wears a pair of dark skinny jeans, a mustard sweater that reaches just to the top button of her jeans and black heels. He wasn't blind. She's a very beautiful woman. A smart one too. And nice. And very wise. Definitely compassionate. Oh, and determined and funny as hell.

If perfection existed, Erin Lindsay is as close to it as any person he's ever or will ever meet.

He's a gentleman, through and through, and he's also a broken man who truly believes he doesn't stand a chance. He'll never stand a chance. He knows that and that's why he's never made a move, he's never asked her out, he's always tried to keep things strictly platonic yet in this moment, he can't help but to admire her from afar, he can't help but to envision the possibilities of what could have been if they had met under different circumstances and he can't help but to check her out.

And she couldn't help but to catch him doing it.

"Dinner was amazing," her voice is low, making her words sound raspier than usual, "you're a really good chef. If I cooked as well as you did, I probably wouldn't order takeout as much." He knows he's caught but he appreciates her for not calling him out on it.

His hand comes up to scratch nervously behind his ear, "Thanks. If you um, if you ever want another homecooked meal, I wouldn't mind doing this again."

Erin is already facing him. Her purse is still pressed to her chest but when she moves forward, close enough that the front of her shoes brush against the front of his socks, he drops his hand and looks up to meet her eyes -the hazel ones that he thinks about even when she's not around, "I think I'm going to definitely take you up on that offer."

And for some reason, he finds himself surprised by her willingness to be in his presence even longer than she needs to be. She hasn't run for the hills. She hasn't left yet. And she's staring at him, at his eyes with the same look he has as he stares into hers. It has been quiet for too long, his mouth too dry to respond, his head too clouded to focus on thinking of a response and with the way she licks her lips, it draws his eyes from the soothing gaze of her hazel orbs down to the plump lips coated with a neutral lipstick color.

It was all bound to happen. But neither of them expected it to happen like this.

Her purse drops from her hold the second their lips join together. His lips, mashed so hard, so roughly against her own, hungrily consuming her as he backed her up against the door to his apartment. She gave as good as she got, pushing back against him, opening her mouth the moment she felt his tongue press against her lips. The bristles of his five o'clock shadow brushed against her dimpled cheeks as her hands came up to cup his head firmly, securely enough to hold him in place, to hold his head at the perfect angle as her mouth worked against his, as their tongues battled back and forth, fighting for dominance, each trying to lead the other.

Erin makes the first move, opening his shirt, buttons flying in all directions and when the fabric falls to the ground, he pulls back, suddenly feeling vulnerable when he realizes his entire chest and upper arms are exposed. He waits for the judgment, for her face to twist up into disgust, but it never happens. She doesn't look bothered by it, she even reaches for his prosthetic, wrapping her hand around it as if it were flesh and when she brings it to her face to rest her cheek against, he feels his breath catch in his throat, "Is this uncomfortable?"

He has to lick his lips to loosen them up enough to respond, "…a little."

"Do you always keep it on when you're at home?"

He shakes his head.

"Do you mind if I take it off?"

He shakes his head.

And she slowly goes to remove the prosthetic from his arm and he doesn't turn away once, he feels compelled to watch her, to observe every micro expression that crosses her face, and to take in the soothing feel of her gentle fingers brush against his arm as the manufactured limb is slowly removed. And suddenly he shuts his eyes and turns his head away, unable to watch her initial reaction to the ugly scars, to the stump that rests where his hand used to be. He couldn't witness the disgust, the rejection and her inevitably deciding to back away, grab her purse and run out of his apartment because this was all a big mistake. He keeps his eyes closed. If she was smart, she'd go and she wouldn't come back, she'd realize the error in her ways, that he wasn't someone she deserves, he wasn't someone worth the trouble.

Jay holds his breath because he doesn't hear a peep from her. She's so quiet, a woman he's known for months that loves to talk had been found speechless and he doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing. He can feel her touch, her nimble fingers cover his stump and he felt the breath leave his body and the tension leave his shoulders when she pressed her lips against his scars, one by one she kissed them and slowly he starts to open his eyes. He doesn't know what he did in his life to deserve this woman, to like, to love her because that's the god honest truth, he's spent so much time with her in the last couple of months, he's shared many things with her just as she has shared with him, she's made him laugh, he's made her smile and she's been on his mind even when he wasn't at an appointment. He's found himself looking forward to his physical therapy sessions and disappointed when his hour-long sessions with her ended.

He can't deny his feelings for her.

What started as a crush, as an attraction to a beautiful woman eventually manifested itself into liking her personality and beauty before that expanded into love.

It's ridiculous. They weren't dating. He's her patient and she's his physical therapist. One might could argue they were friends too, but anything beyond that wasn't their reality. Jay doesn't know if this is acceptable, he doesn't know if this'll harm her career and his mind is telling him not to risk it while his heart is telling him the opposite, "Hey," she's looking at him, palms resting against his chest, dragging down along the scars imprinted on his sculptured chest before falling to the buckle on his belt, "if you don't want to do this, we can stop. I can leave."

He licks his dry lips as she waits for an answer.

"Do you want me to stop?"

He looks down to his stump, raising his left arm and extending it until it settled against her hair, pushing strands behind her shoulder, "I don't want to jeopardize your career."

"You won't," she reassures, raising her hand to hold his left forearm, the one that's currently settled against the side of her head, "you've made tremendous progress and completed your last goal, my work here is done," the smile on his face falters and she catches it, "but if you don't want me to go," she pauses because now she feels vulnerable and a bit self-conscious putting her heart on the line, "I won't go. I want you to be sure, Jay. I don't want you to regret any decision we make tonight. I know over these last couple of months we've gotten close but I just," she stops to contemplate how she wants to finish that sentence, "I just want you to be sure of your feelings. I want you to be positive that this is something you actually want and you're not caught up in a fantasy of wanting to be with me because of the compassion I've showed you, the care I gave you, the help I offered and the interest I've shown as a physical therapist. I want you to be sure you want to be with Erin Lindsay the food critic, the night owl, the woman who hates Mondays, the girl that cringes at romantic comedies, the-"

And before another word could be spoken, his lips were back on hers. This kiss was just as rough and passionate as before, but a layer of sensuality was added to the mix that drew his arms around her waist, his hand and stump settling underneath her shirt and pressed against her back before he began to blindly lead her away from the door and towards his bedroom.

They fall into bed, a mesh of limbs, shifted and removed clothes and it's a frenzy of lips and hands as they pull off the rest of their clothing. One passionate kiss after another, one rushed kiss following the last until everything slows down and comes to a halt the second he plunges into her, hovering above her, holding himself still for a moment to allow her to adjust to his size, to allow for her arms to reach up and for her hands to wrap around his tattooed and scarred biceps, sucking in a large breath to savor the sensation currently coursing through every inch of her body. He shuts his eyes, dipping his head down to press it into the crook of her neck, whispering, "I love you so damn much," as her hands slide down his arms so he can reach for them, twining their fingers together before pressing his mouth to hers, kissing any response she may have had from her lips as he begins to move slowly above her in long and deep strokes that builds up the anticipation for the inevitable release that'll soon take over the both of them.

She has one hand intertwined with his while her other holds onto his stump, neither paying much or any attention to the fact that there's no hand there to grab, "Jay," the sound of his name coming from her lips at a heightened state of passion triggers something inside of him.

He kisses her slower this time, their lips pressed against each other like magnets, refusing to separate because the need to be together is stronger than the need for air. He's wanted this for as long as he can remember. He's patiently waited and hoped for this moment and now that it's actually here, it feels unreal, it feels like a dream, one too good to be true.

"Erin," her name fell from his lips and she swallowed his words in the kiss, "Love you."

It isn't too long before he hears the catch in her breath, the stutter of her lips, her eyes falling shut and her lips parting open, moaning out his name again.

It's enough to give him that last push, to send him over the edge, his hand tightening around hers, his legs trembling with the effort of continuing through their release of passion. His arms start to shake in its need to collapse but he doesn't want to fall on top of her. He's too heavy. Yet, when her arms wrap around him, he's too weak to fight against it and his body falls to completely cover her own, his naked body against her naked body, connected in more ways than just his flaccid shaft enveloped in her warm entrance. His face cradled in the crook of her neck, he can feel her chest rising and falling, "Jay," she whispers, still breathless, chest rising up and down as he gains enough energy to fall to the mattress beside her, releasing her hand only to pull and wrap her up in his arms, "I love you too."

* * *

Jay notices the index card being set down in front of him. His handwriting is crossed out by lines on the paper hinting that each goal he wanted to accomplish had been achieved. He doesn't understand why she's showing him this and based on the raised brow he gives her, she leans over to grab the card and flip it over, "When you wrote down your goals, I decided to add one for you," her hands move to his shoulders, massaging the knots out of them as he reads her neatly scrawled handwriting.

Feel comfortable exposing prostethic/stump.

He reads it over a few times before turning his head to look up at her, "I can't be the judge of that one. Only you can." She walks around to take a seat on his lap, wrapping her arm around his shoulders, "I know I said our professional relationship is over now but as your girlfriend-"

"Is that what we are now?"

"I kind of figured since we're already dropping L bombs."

He smiles, "I love you."

"That one," she points out as if he didn't already know.

He nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck and sighs, "I don't think I'm ready to cross that off now." And she understands. It's no rush. She grabs it and pockets it.

"That's completely okay. I'm going to hold onto it until you are ready to do the honor of scratching it out yourself."

* * *

Erin's inching backwards, face flushed as she sheds herself out of the workout clothes drenched in sweat. She pulls back and he pushes forward, inching towards her lips with every out of breath huff and puff until he's swallowing up her exhausted pants with his mouth. She shakes her head, smiling into the kiss before moving her lips against his as she whispers, "I'm sticky and sweaty."

He's cupping her jawline with his prosthetic hand after he tears his lips away from hers, "Perfect."

He just smiles at her.

He's head over heels in love with her.

With his other hand wrapped around her waist, he pulls her closer until her chest is pressed against his. And he kisses her again, soft sighs and tangled hands in hair and clothing being ripped and thrown from their bodies until her legs are wrapped around his waist, her feet no longer touching the floor and he's holding her up with both hands pressed against the base of her thighs. He carries her to his bedroom, ignoring the damp sweat on her body because he had every intention of working up another sweat, this time together, this time as one.

* * *

She takes him bowling. He takes her mini-golfing. He wins bowling. She wins mini-golf.

She helps him shave. He helps her bake.

She treats him to dinner. He cooks her favorite meal the day after.

She takes him to the arcade. He beats her at every game they play except for the last. She thinks he let her win.

Erin shows him pictures of Camille. He shows her pictures of his deceased mother.

Erin tells him about the scar on her knee. She fell off her bike.

He tells her about the black eye he got as a teenager for defending a girl being harassed by two guys she wasn't interested in. Erin kisses him when she hears the story. A man after her own heart and he corrects her statement, -a man whose already got her heart. Just as she has his.

* * *

Erin looks at her reflection in his bathroom mirror while playing with the knobs on either side of the faucet, trying to find the perfect temperature while Jay finishes up his shower. The water stutters, lacking its steady stream due to the sound of banging pipes behind the tiled wall. Jay's humming an unfamiliar tune and she finds it soothing despite the sputtering water spewing out of the sink, splashing her in the face when she turns the knobs too far in one direction, "You seriously need to talk to your landlord. I'm pretty sure this is a violation or something."

The shower curtain is pulled back and he dips his head out, "What is?"

"This," she nods towards the sink, "how long has it been like this?"

"…don't know," he shrugs and turns back to resume his shower, "I think it's always been like that. I think it was like that when I moved in."

"I never noticed."

"Hmm…" she shuts off the water. She hears him continue humming a soft tune before the lyrics to that unfamiliar song are sung. Erin's distracted, mind no longer on the broken faucet but rather on his arms wrapping around her waist from behind, "Ew Jay, you're soaking wet."

Jay doesn't pull away. Instead, he pulls her closer, flushing the back of her pajama clad body to the front of his naked one, "That wouldn't be a problem if you joined me in the shower like we planned," he nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck, "the water's still warm."

Erin looks straight ahead into the mirror, watching him inhale the scent of her hair, watching him press his groin into her backside and watching a toothy grin stretch across his face, "I don't think I tell you this enough but I love your smile."

He adjusts his head so his chin is resting on her shoulder and he's now looking in the mirror at their reflection, "I don't think I tell you this enough but I didn't smile as much before I met you."

"How come I don't believe that?" Her hands drop to cover his forearms. And she fails to hide her smile when his hand and stump situate itself against her waist.

"I'm not sure but I am sure about the fact that I'm telling the truth."

She runs her hands up and down until stopping and grasping onto his hand and stump, "Yeah," she doesn't feel his body tense up at the feeling of her hand caressing the stump at the end of his arm and of all the progress he's made in months, that feels like the biggest one yet.

She's so proud of him.

"Thank you for helping me get my confidence back," he turns his head inwards causing his lips to brush against her jawline, "for helping me realize that I'm not a monster, that I'm worth loving and losing my hand doesn't make me less than the man I was when I had both. Thank you, baby."

She turns around in his arm. Her gaze focused downwards at his hardening groin and she looks up at him with a pleased smile. Erin's arms wrap around his shoulders, dangling behind his head and she rises to the tips of her toes to kiss him, "I want to thank you too," she presses her lips up against his again, "for teaching me to live in the moment, to not take the little things for granted and I want to thank you for becoming my family, my only family."

This time it's him that crushes his mouth against hers, desperately flattening her lips with his own until she opened her mouth, granting him access to her tongue as it seeks to tangle with hers. She smiles, hands dropping to clench his naked hips and she couldn't help but to think about how far they've come in over a year, how far he's healed physically and mentally, how much her heart has grown. So much has changed, so much has happened and none of it, neither of them regret.

* * *

They go bike riding, it's something he hasn't done since losing his hand.

They go swimming too, it's another activity he's skipped out on since the attack.

They go horseback riding. They go dancing. They go to play laser tag. They even go paintballing.

So much of his life had been put on pause since his hand was amputated that he hadn't realized how much he's missed out on. It's nice to have the joy of doing fun activities back. It's even nicer to be able to experience it all with someone he loves, someone that doesn't mind holding his prosthetic hand, someone that doesn't flinch when his stump touches her and someone that doesn't bat an eye when getting comfortable involves him removing the prosthetic from his arm.

He rolls over in the bed to face her bare back. She's asleep. The moonlight shining through his opened curtains illuminates her body, creating a soft glow over her warm figure. He scoots closer to slide his stump under her head while his hand wraps around her stomach, palm lying flat against her belly button, spooning her from behind.

"Mmm," she groans, eyes still closed but because of the sudden movement, it wakes her up just a tad, "Jay," she needs to clear her throat. It's scratchy but she's too tired to do it.

"Shhh," he whispers, pressing his lips against the back of her head, "go back to sleep." And the second he tightens his protective hold around her waist, she does just that.

* * *

Erin has a key to his place and she lets herself in after a long day at work. She had a training to attend, four new patients and a staff meeting that legit could have been an email. She was tired, exhausted and her limbs ached so when she flopped down on his couch, threw her head back and shut her eyes, hoping that she'd easily fall into a nap, she was surprised to find herself unable to sleep. She would have bet money that exhaustion would have knocked her out.

"Here," she reopens her eyes to see a mug of tea extended towards her, "I made it for myself but I think you need it more than I do."

"Bless you," she mumbles, taking hold of the cup and bringing it to her lips. It's cooled down enough for her to take a few sips. It's calming. It's relaxing. And she needs this brand so she can buy a few boxes of this tea and store it in her cabinets at home.

Jay disappears into the kitchen, reappearing with a small saucer with a slice of cake on it. He situates the plate on his lap and uses the fork to bring bites to his mouth, "Did you bake?"

"I did," he grins, knowing sweets were her weakness.

"You love my body yet you make dessert every week so how am I to keep the body you love?"

"I'll love your body in whatever form it comes in."

She pushes herself up only to sit on his coffee table to be closer to him sitting in the arm chair. He knows what she's up to and he doesn't even wait for her to ask before he's offering her a bite of the chocolate cake, "Mmm," she moans when her mouth wraps around the fork, "I'll probably end up taking half of the cake home with me. Would you judge me if I had it for dinner?"

"Fortunately, we don't have to find out. Dinner is thawing and I'm going to start cooking in a few minutes," he drops his fork on the empty plate and uses his now free hand to intertwine with hers, bringing her knuckles to his lips for him to run over with chaste kisses, "You should stay the night." It's not the first time he's asked. And she's spent the night before, never without him requesting it, and maybe it's because she doesn't feel comfortable just spending the night without permission so he's willing to offer it every chance she's over.

"…only if I can have dessert before dinner."

"I technically did," he shrugged his shoulders, "so of course you can too."

Erin bounces her shoulders up and down in excitement, shimmying them and performing a small little wiggle dance because food makes her happy. He loves that about her. He loves to cook and she loves to eat, -a match made in heaven.

"Do you work tomorrow?"

"Yeah," she whispered because it feels like she's always working when in reality she isn't working more than usual. It's just she's hardly ever been in a serious relationship so her free time is usually spent in front of a television, eating takeout, "I'll have to wake extra early to head home and change my clothes," she looks down at her uniform; she needed a fresh pair, "I can't stay up late again tonight. Kim had to keep elbowing me because I kept drifting off to sleep during that boring ass meeting. I can't afford to fall asleep at the wrong time."

"Next time you go home maybe you should bring a few uniforms over here?"

"Jay-"

"You still pay rent at your place but you spend more time at mine."

"Jay-"

"I'm just saying, maybe you should stop?"

"Stop what exactly? Paying rent at my place or spending time at yours?"

"I'm horrible with my words today. I meant the first one, definitely not the second. I love it when you're here. I don't want you to leave. I want you here more actually. I like waking up with you beside me, even if you hog the covers and put your cold ass feet on my calves. I like cooking for you too, I like not having to eat alone. I like that I sometimes trip over your shoes because you always forget to put them on the rack. I even like the fact that the toothbrush holder has both mine and your toothbrush inside of it. I like you here. Is it wrong of me to want you here more?"

Erin unclips her name badge from the collar of her shirt and leans over to drop it in her opened purse. She reaches up to pull the hair tie off, releasing her loose ponytail. She's performing these actions to process his words, "It's not wrong at all," she scoots forward until she's at the edge of the coffee table, "and I don't mind spending more nights here but my lease is up next year and I can't break it," she raises her hand to run her fingers through his hair, curling a few strands at the back, "but that doesn't mean we can't spend nights together. Or maybe you can move in with me? When is your lease up?"

"…next year."

"Stupid contracts," she leans in to peck his lips.

"Right," he agrees, lips moving against hers before they both separate, "but maybe when our leases are up we can move in together? Either you move in here or I move in with you? Your place is nicer," he shrugs, raising his hand to scratch behind his ear, "no pressure though. I'm just-"

"I would love to live with you when our leases are up. And maybe instead of me moving into your turf or you moving into mine we take the time until our leases are up to find our own turf? A different place? A different apartment? Or maybe a house?"

This time it's his turn to kiss her. It's scary to even consider the thought that losing his hand may not have been the worst thing ever, it may actually be one of the best things that's ever happened to him. It's a hard thing to consider, but the truth of the matter is, as far as he knows, he wouldn't have met Erin Lindsay if he did not lose his hand.

* * *

It was their first vacation as a couple. It was a ten-day cruise vacation, visiting four countries in Central America. It wasn't just a simple vacation, it was _the _vacation and he knew if he was going to have any chance of enjoying it, he needed to ask her early on.

The beach was too simple.

Dinner was too plain.

He wanted her to be surprised. He wanted her to be in her element. He didn't plan an extravagant evening for the proposal, he simply carried the jewelry box around with him, waiting for the perfect moment to drop to one knee and ask her the million-dollar question. In getting caught up in trying to find the perfect opportunity, he forgot that any opportunity would be perfect as long as they're together, ready to commit to one another in heart, body and soul.

There's a small, velvet box in his pocket that shifts slightly when he leans in to taste her smile.

She tears at his clothes, tugging them in an attempt to pull them off when the box falls out of his pocket. The most unplanned moment became the perfect moment.

Erin stops breathing. She drops to her knees and picks up the box, opening it as he watches. His breath hitches as he takes in her reaction to the ring. She's speechless. And now it's his turn to drop to his knees in front of her, wrapping his hand around her wrist to tug her towards him, "Do you realize how much I love you? The amount is fucking crazy."

Her head falls to his shoulder, "I know exactly how you feel. I'm sorry I ruined your proposal."

"The only way you'd ruin it is if you said no."

She looks up to meet his eyes. She stands up next, tugging him up with her and she holds his hands -both of them- before inhaling and exhaling, "Yes I'll marry you."

"I didn't ask yet." He jokes. And she rolls her eyes.

"I'm sorry. Go ahead."

"You've changed my whole entire outlook on life," he smiles just as her grin widens, "You're my soulmate. You're my partner. You're my love." Jay notices her bottom lip tremble at his words but she continues to try to hold herself together, "You helped me more than you'll ever know, you never gave up on me, you saw me as a person worth loving. It's like you were made to fit in my arms. I don't know what I did right in this world to deserve you but I promise I'll never take you for granted. I'll love you for now and forever if you'll have me as your husband?"

"Yes," she whispered, "of course Jay, yes, 100 times yes!"

Jay scoops her up in his arms, holding her up as her legs wrap around his waist while the smile on his face beams so brightly it's in competition with the sun. She has her hands against his face and she's kissing him, her lips peppering against his before moving along his jawline, his cheeks, his eyelids and everywhere else her lips can land as he chuckles out an, "I love you."

She loves him too. He already knows this yet it doesn't stop her from reiterating it, "I love you too. So. Fucking. Much."

* * *

Erin had phoned him early one morning, waking him up earlier than he's used to which is very different since he's always been an early riser and being in the army only reinforced that. His ringer is what startles him awake and the panic that flushes through his system is what throws him off the bed to rip his cell off the charger. He's positive that she doesn't work today, he's pretty sure that Erin isn't the type to wake up early -even when she has to work, she hates waking up early- and he's positive that they have nothing planned today, he didn't oversleep.

So now he's worried. He swipes his thumb across the screen, answers the video call and then rubs sleep from his eyes as his voice cracks out of concern for her, "Is everything okay?"

He braces himself for the bad news when he sees her watery, red rimmed and puffy eyes. She keeps sniffing and rubbing her nose with the back of her hand. He grows even more worried than before because in the few years they've been dating, he's only seen Erin cry three times.

"I'm fine."

"You're crying," he points out the obvious.

"That doesn't mean I'm sad."

He smiles because he knows that to be the truth, "…then what are you?"

"Scared?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?"

"…maybe both."

He takes in her background, he recognizes the tiled walls and he knows she's sitting on the floor of her bathroom, "Erin, why are you on the ground? What's wrong? Why're you scared?"

"I needed to talk to you."

"At this hour?"

"I don't think it could have waited."

Jay carries his phone over to the window, peaking out to see the sun hasn't set yet. It's too early for either of them to be awake.

All he can hear is her stuttering, hiccupping breaths. She tries to contain herself but she fails miserably. And all he can do is step his feet into a pair of socks, then boots before reaching to grab his jacket, "I'm coming over."

"It's late."

"Technically, it's early."

"Jay, it's snowing outside. I don't want you traveling in that. I can come to you."

"I don't want you traveling in that either."

"Ugh, I can't wait until the house is ready for us to move in." They've found a home a few miles outside of the city, the drive from the house to her job allows her to take backroads and not get caught in traffic. Her lease ends at the end of the month; his does too. Only a few weeks until they'll officially be living together where if she wants to wake him up in the middle of the night all she has to do is shake his shoulder.

"Can you tell me why you're scared?"

She sniffs again. She runs her hand through her hair and tucks a few strands behind her ear, "…because I'm pregnant."

And the phone almost drops out of his hands. He doesn't say anything in return. He doesn't react. He simply zips up his coat and pulls open his front door, grabbing the keys out of the decorative bowl near his door before racing out of his apartment. Jay can hear her calling his name, asking him questions about where he's going, why'd he leave, can he please say something, etc.

When Jay brings the phone up to his face, he sees the confusion settle deep in her brow. She's still on the bathroom floor and that only powers him up more. He gets in his car and Erin doesn't need to ask where he's going because she already knows now. He's going to her.

A step out into the morning air sends a chill through his body. He doesn't hesitate turning up the heat in his car, "Can you at least drive the speed limit? I'm not going anywhere."

"Good," he whispers. It takes everything in him not to speed. He doesn't have her on the phone anymore and her parting words told him to drive safe. And he promised her he would. He doesn't understand why they're still sleeping at separate places when they're about to move in together but guessing because they both paid rent for the final month they're getting their money's worth.

Jay pulls up to her building, much fancier than his, and he parks the car and puts the parking pass where it can be seen through the windshield. He gets out, uses his keys to lock the door and then moves through the gathering snow to enter the building. He leaves melted snow puddles in his path through the lobby and in the elevator but fortunately there was nothing else to leave by the time he gets to her front door, flipping through his keys with one hand until he finds her key in the mix and unlocks the top and bottom lock.

"Erin," he whispers her name for some reason even though he knows she's awake and she's most likely still in her bathroom. He checks the hall bathroom first and when he finds it empty he goes to the bathroom in her bedroom, finding her sitting in the dark on the floor, knees to her chest and staring at the four tests she has lined up near her feet.

They're all positive.

"Babe," he lowers himself to his knees in front of her. And when she looks up, he opens his arms to welcome her in. She needs the comfort, the protection and the reassurance, "it's going to be okay. This is good. This is great." He pulls back to cup her face with his hand and stump -suddenly realizing he left his prosthetic in the apartment, "I love you," he doesn't know what else to say, what else he can do to make the tears stop, "and this is good, right?" His eyes fall to the sparkling diamond engagement ring on her finger especially when that hand goes to lie against her flat stomach.

"Yeah," she whispers, "This is good."

He rests his forehead against hers and closely watches the tears fall, "Then why are you crying?"

"…because this is real, those tests are real, and this is really happening and we're engaged, we're about to move in together and now we're about to be parents and I'm so happy but I'm also terrified." And he could understand that.

"I don't want to force you into doing something you don't-"

She cuts his words off with a kiss, one heated enough that it leads to him falling back with her draped over his chest to continue the kiss, "You know me well enough now to know that no one can force me to do anything. And I love you too. I never thought I would ever find a guy that I actually want to settle down with, a guy that I'll love enough to get married and want children but then you entered the picture and I all of a sudden wanted it all, only if it was with you."

He peppers kisses around her face, starting at her lips, along her jawline and down her neck as his hand wraps around her body and his stump rests against her stomach, "I gave up on wanting any of this after I lost my hand. I never thought I would be worthy enough or I'd find a girl that's right for me that would be able to look pass my disability. I never saw any good in this," he raises his stump and waves it -and Erin suddenly realizes that he left the apartment without his prosthetic- "I hated it. I hated the scars, the sensitivity, the pain, the stares and everything else this has brought me but then I realized in some weird way it's also brought me you."

Erin straddles his lap, sitting up while his back continues to rest on the tiled floor, "I'm in love with you" she leans forward to smear her lips against his own, "every part of you." He kisses her and his heart roars as his hand tangles in the back of her bedridden hair, "and I know we've been through our fair share of things, but this baby," she pauses and registers that word -baby- because they're actually going to have one of those, "this baby isn't going to want for anything. He or she will be made up with the best parts of us. He or she will be filled with so much love they're not going to know what to do with it," she chuckles when he kisses a happy tear that slipped from her eye, "I love you so much. I can't wait until we start our lives together."

"We've already started a life together." He means in the sense of their baby. And she smiles at the thought of that, "and we've already started the process of starting our lives together," now he's talking in the sense of them moving together soon and their wedding that's scheduled and planned to happen in another two months, "I've loved you before we were even a thing. And I love this baby before it's even here," he kisses her, "I thought when losing my hand that I also lost my life, my future, my purpose, and your love helped me get that back," he kisses her again and it lasts a little longer than the last one, "I never saw this happening. I never saw you happening and every morning I wake up and pinch myself to make sure it's real. I'm going to be your husband and someone's dad," he seals his words with a kiss and when it breaks, both of them smile at one another, "And Er-"

"Hmm?"

"I know it's been a few years but do you still have my index card."

"I said I was going to keep it until you're ready to scratch off the last goal."

Jay nods slowly, tossing her words over in his head. He doesn't speak right away. He squeezes his arms around her tighter, taking in her scent and sighing because it's been long enough. He knows that now it's time to let go of everything that's been holding him back from completely moving on and putting the pain behind him, "I'm ready to cross it off."

* * *

The best days are the ones where neither of them have to leave the house, where they can just sleep in, lay in bed and roll over into each other's arms. Those are the best days. Those are the days they're going to miss when their little one joins them. His new prosthetic -one that can bend, grip and is more advanced than the basic one he's worn for years- falls to her baby bump, so round and so big that he knows any day now her water will break.

A gender-neutral nursery is prepared for their little one.

Neither of them decided to find out the gender, choosing to wait and be surprised. It was a miracle of life, to create something so precious, to birth it, to raise and love it with every part of you.

"Do you have to work today?" She clears her scratchy throat and rolls around to face him.

"No," he whispered in the darkness of their bedroom, "I took off for the rest of the week." He works part-time as a chef at a restaurant.

"Because…"

"…because my wife is pregnant and will go into labor at any second."

"I can just call you when that happens."

"I don't want to risk it."

Erin cups his face and briefly brushes her lips against his, "My overprotective husband."

"Just the right amount of protective," he whispers against her lips in response. She raises her hand and intertwines it with his prosthetic -his new one- and with the advancement of it, he's able to bend it and clasp it around her hand, "Just think in less than a week, we'll be parents."

"Are we out of our minds? Why did we think this was a good idea?" She laughs.

"…because we're risk takers, we're two people without family that came together to create our own," he answered without any forethought, "because we're willing to love another soul with our entirety, because we're a little crazy, out of our minds and we have so much love to offer that a kid deserves to experience it."

"I'm so glad you walked into the center that day."

"I'm so glad you were patient with me."

"Of course, Jay," she smiles and presses her lips against his again, "something very unfortunate happened to you, something that you didn't deserve and you needed time to heal both physically and mentally. If someone wasn't patient with you then that's more of a reflection on them than you." He kisses her into silence. So hard. So rough. And when he rolled her onto her back, reaching down to grab at the gown she started wearing the moment she entered her third trimester, he felt her hand cover his own, stopping him from progressing this further, "Jay."

"What's wrong?"

"Um, it's t-time." He lifts her gown and notices the puddle. Her water had broken. And no amount of preparation prepared him for the moment because everything he read and planned had been forgotten. It was she that kept a leveled head, that reminded him to grab the overnight bag out the closet, that didn't let him leave the house without his shoes -and most importantly- without her. It was hard to believe that if someone came to him after his accident and told him that in a few years he would be married to the woman of his dreams, sharing a home and having a baby -and maybe getting a dog in the future-, he wouldn't believe them. He would laugh, probably cry, kick them out and then fall back into a cocoon of anger and depression because he once thought there was no way a man like him deserved a woman like her, a life like this.

Jay was medically discharged from the army as a hurt and damaged man. He was once admired, looked at as a hero, and all of that came crashing down in the seconds it had taken him to lose his hand. He didn't know what to do. His life felt over despite the fact that his heart was still beating and his blood was still pumping through his veins. Between his mental and physical health, he felt stuck in an endless cycle of feeling like a victim and not wanting to be looked at like a victim. His arm was the casualty in the war; he lost it fighting to protect himself and his brothers. Doctors couldn't save it. It was smashed. And when he returned back home, he struggled for months to find a way to adapt to the forever change in his lifestyle.

He was in therapy.

He had regular check-ups with his doctor who had eventually recommended physical therapy.

And deciding to go to physical therapy was the best decision he's ever made in his life. His physical therapist, she was a woman he thought at the time he didn't deserve. He felt broken. He felt alone. He felt incomplete and through a slow burning journey of self and physical healing, he started to realize that despite the tragedies he's suffered in life, he's whole. And the physical therapist who happened to be so sweet to him, so patient, kind, funny and compassionate wasn't too opposed to getting a coffee with him when he asked, to letting him cook for her, to letting him love her, to being opened to be loved by him, to moving in together, to getting married and to starting a family. This was his life. And he wouldn't change a thing about it.


End file.
